is glasses to watch the leader as he controlled
the evolutions of the twenty-five airplanes which constituted the
"circus."

It was a sight well worth watching.

First in a great V, like a flock of wild geese, the squadron swept
across the sky, every machine in its station. Then, at a signal from the
leader, the V broke into three diamond-shaped formations, with the
leader at the apex of the triangle which the three flights formed.
Another signal and the circus broke into momentary confusion, to reform
with much banking and wheeling into a straight line--again with the
leader ahead. Backward and forward swept the line; changed direction and
wheeled until the machines formed a perfect circle in the sky.

"Splendid!" barked the man with the jerking head.

An officer, who stood a few paces to his rear, stepped up smartly,
saluted, and came rigidly to attention.

"Splendid!" said the other again. "You will tell Captain Baron von
Bissing that I am pleased and that I intend bestowing upon him the Order
_Pour la Merite_. His arrangements for my protection at Lille and Douai
and Menin were perfect."

"Majesty," said the officer, "your message shall be delivered."

The sightseer swept the heavens again. "I presume that the other machine
is posted as a sentinel," he said. "That is a most excellent idea--it is
flying at an enormous height. Who is the pilot?"

The officer turned and beckoned one of the group behind him. "His
Majesty wishes to know who is the pilot of the sentinel machine?" he
asked.

The officer addressed raised his face to the heavens with a little
frown.

"The other machine, general?" he repeated. "There is no other machine."

He focused his glasses on the tiniest black spot in the skies. Long and
seriously he viewed the lonely watcher, then:

"General," he said hastily, "it is advisable that his Majesty should
go."

"Huh?"

"I can not distinguish the machine, but it looks suspicious."

_"Whoom! Whoom!"_

A field away, two great brown geysers of earth leaped up into the air
and two deafening explosions set the bare branches of the trees swaying.

Down the bank scrambled the distinguished party and in a few seconds the
cars were streaking homeward.

The circus was now climbing desperately, but the watcher on high had a
big margin of safety.

_"Whoom!"_

Just to the rear of the last staff car fell the bomb, blowing a great
hole in the paved road and scattering stones and debris over a wid